1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to bottle brushes, and more particularly, to an improved bottle brush for more easily and effectively cleaning the interior a bottle.
2. Description of Prior Art
As is well known, reusable bottles, such as glass or plastic baby bottles used for feeding young children and laboratory bottles used to hold various specimens, must be clean and sterile. Unclean bottles are both unsightly and could cause problems, such as illness in young children, or improper results when used in a laboratory or clinical setting.
Because of this recognized need, there are many types of bottle cleaners available used to clean the interior of a bottle. These bottle brushes take many forms, but generally consist of a single strand of twisted wire with a number of bristles secured at one end so as to radiate outwardly to provide a cylindrical cleaning brush that is inserted into the interior of a bottle to try to clean the same. The known brushes, however, do not adequately clean all bottles, and for this reason, a need still exists in the art for a brush which will overcome known problems with cleaning bottles.
One attempt to provide an improved brush for cleaning a bottle is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,461 to Bucklitzsch, which discloses a cleaning brush having an elongated supporting member with a crank type arm at the outer end and a brush member formed at the bottom end. The brush member is made of resilient flexible bristles divided into an upper generally cylindrical portion and a lower frustro-conical portion, with the bristles getting progressively larger down towards the bottom of the brush. A handle is mounted on the crank type arm at the outer end of the elongated supporting member and the handle is turned with the brush in the interior of a bottle so that the bristles engage the walls, etc. of the interior of the bottle so as to scrub the interior thereof.
Other types of cleaning devices and/or are bottle brushes are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,184,222, 4,502,176, 4,837,887, 5,033,155, 5,339,480, 5,435,040, U.S. Des. Nos. 250,068, 286,465, 334,287, 335,223, 335,770 and 336,160. The prior art devices, or cleaners, shown in these patents, however, do not solve all known problems. Furthermore, in the present climate of increased interest in health and fear of contamination, there still exists a need in the art for an improved bottle cleaning brush and, in particular, a brush for cleaning the interior of a baby bottle. In addition, there is a need in the art for a simple to manufacture baby bottle cleaning brush which is also easy to use and which may not be readily set aside or lost.